It’s official: Oregonians will vote this November on whether to legalize the cultivation and sale of marijuana in the state.

The secretary of state’s office late Friday afternoon announced that the measure –known as the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act – received 88,887 valid signatures, just over the 87,213 needed to qualify for the general election ballot.

Oregon now becomes the third state, following Washington and Colorado, to place measures on the ballot this year to legalize marijuana. A separate initiative, to give adult Oregonians the constitutional right to possess marijuana, failed to gain enough valid signatures, according to election officials. But the chief petitioner this week filed a lawsuit demanding it be placed on the ballot.

Paul Stanford, who owns a chain of medical marijuana clinics and was the chief backer of the measure that qualified for the ballot, said he plans a well-funded campaign in the fall.

"I’ve been working on this for 24 years,” he said, “so it’s a happy day for me.”

The measure is expected to face opposition from the law enforcement community, which successfully campaigned against a 2010 measure liberalizing the state's medical marijuana law.

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